Living above the shop: home, business, and family in the English "Industrial Revolution"

This article explores the living arrangements and familial relations of small business households in northwest English towns between 1760 and 1820. Focusing on evidence from inventories and personal writing, it examines the homes that such households lived and worked in and the ways in which space was ordered and used: indicating that access to particular spaces was determined by status. This study suggests both the continuance of the "household family" into the nineteenth century (rather than its more modern, "nuclear" variant) and the existence of keenly felt gradations of status within households making it likely that the constitution of "the family" differed according to one's place in the domestic hierarchy.     

Radicalizing Relationships To and Through Shared Geographies: Why Anarchists Need to Understand Indigenous Connections to Land and Place

Abstract: Indigenous activists and anarchist Settler people are articulating common ground in opposition to imperialism and colonialism. However, many anarchists have faced difficulties in Indigenous solidarity work through unintentional (often unwitting) transgressions and appropriations. Through the introduction of settler colonialism as a complicating power dynamic, we observe that anarchists bring unconscious spatial perceptions into their solidarity work. Further, Indigenous activists often perceive anarchists as Settler people first and foremost, which carries another set of spatial implications. We examine a number of examples of anarchist and Indigenous activism, at times empowering and at times conflictual, in order to reveal some general trends. Through an intensive synthesis of Indigenous peoples’ theories and articulations of place‐based relationships, we suggest that deeper understandings of these relationships can be of great importance in approaching solidarity work in place and with respect.     

Asian migration to Australia: Changing trends and implications

International migration between Asia and Australia has undergone profound change in the last two decades. This paper outlines the major changes which have occurred in this movement. The proportion of Australia's resident population born in Asia has increased from 1.1 % in 1976 to 5.5 % in 2001. Asians now make up more than a third of new settlers to Australia but there has been an increased diversity in the flow of Asian settlers to Australia as well as the substantial increase in numbers. Australian international migration has entered a new era since the mid‐1990s with a greatly increased flow of temporary workers to Australia. The inflow of these workers is less dominated by Asia‐born people than is the permanent flow except for student migration. There is also an increasing flow of movers from Australia to Asia. Much current knowledge and research remain focused on Asian permanent settlement in Australia. While this is important and worthwhile, there is a need to broaden the work to encompass the full range of population movements between Asia and Australia if the impact of international migration is to be adequately assessed.     

The problem of runrig

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY

Continental Drift. By D. H. and M. P. Tarling. 8 1/2 x 6. 112 pp., 43 illustrations. Bibliography. G. Bell, London. £1–50.

Introduction to Geomorphology. By A. F. Pitty. xvi + 526 pp. Numerous illustrations, Bibliography. Index. Methuen, London, 1971. £5.

ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

The Logic of Unity. By Geoffrey Parker. 8 1/2 x 5 1/2, xviii + 178 pp., 36 maps and diagrams. Longmans Geography Paperbacks. Second impression, 1970. £1.15.

Seaports and Seaport Terminals. By James Bird. 5 1/4 x 8 1/2, 240 pp., 22 maps, diagrams. Hutchison &; Co., London, 1971. 90p (paper).

Seaports and Development in Tropical Africa. Edited by B. S. Hoyle and D. Hilling. 8 3/4 x 6, xvi+271 pp. Macmillan, London. £4.

ISLANDS SERIES. Each volume approximately 13.5 x 21.7 cms., 250 pp., plates and maps, bibliographies. David and Charles, Newton Abbot, 1970/71. £2.50.

1. Orkney. By Patrick Bailey

2. Arran. By Robert McLellan

3. The Isle of Mull, By P. A. Macnab

4. St. Kilda and Other Hebridean Outliers. By Francis Thompson

The Industrial Archaeology of Galloway. By Ian Donnachie. 8 1/2 x 6. Pp. 271, 32 plates, 39 illustrations. David &; Charles, Newton Abbot, 1971. £3–50.     

Re‐writing the ‘book of blots’: Critical reflections on histories of technological ‘failure’

Abstract

Although an interest in technological ‘failure’ has become prominent in recent history of technology, historians have not always clearly articulated the presuppositions of attributing ‘failure’ to technology. This paper undertakes a critical examination of two main historiographies of ‘failure’: ‘failure’ as categorization of ‘pathological’ technologies that clearly demarcates them from ‘successes’, and ‘failure’ as a mundane and inevitable prerequisite of subsequent ‘success’. To reconcile these divergent analyses, this paper argues that historians should not treat ‘failure’ as residing in the technology itself. It is rather a matter of imputation according to socially‐embedded criteria of what constitutes success and failure. Accordingly judgements of ‘failure’ are prone to interpretive flexibility in a manner that is not necessarily settled by any process of ‘closure.’ I will argue that any ‘failure’ of technologies should be located in the socio‐technical relations of usage, especially in the expectations, skills and resources of human users. The moral irony of attributing responsibility for ‘failure’ to technologies themselves rather than to humans users will thereby be highlighted.     

A Pre-Norman Field-System at Hen Domen,Montgomery

SURVEY of a field, immediately north of the early Norman motte-and-bailey castle of Hen Domen, Montgomery, revealed ridge-and-furrow, averaging 4 m. in width, cut by the outer ditch of the bailey. Excavation demonstrated that the ridge-and-furrow extended under the inner rampart of the bailey. Pollen analysis of the buried soil showed the former presence of cereals and the weeds of cultivation. A Carbon-14 date from charcoal in the buried soil reinforced the view that this field-system was in use before the Norman conquest.     

From dates to demography in later prehistoric Ireland? Experimental approaches to the meta-analysis of large C data-sets

We present a series of iterative methods to examine the problems associated with summed probability functions (SPFs) based on archaeological radiocarbon data. As a case study we use an SPF generated from a substantial radiocarbon data-set from the Irish Later Bronze and Iron Ages. We use simple numerical methods to show that real patterns can be deciphered from SPFs that can be used to trace and evaluate patterns of change. However, our results suggest that SPFs should not be used as a simple index of past human activity.     

The Adoption of Agriculture in Ireland: Perceptions of Key Research Challenges

This paper outlines the results of a project carried out 2007–2008 providing oversight of key challenges in the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in Ireland as understood by those researching the period. The project involved interviews with practitioners from a variety of fields in order to obtain qualitative data. The resulting synthesis is not a ‘consensus’ statement of priorities, but a reflection of a very diverse research field. Given that the project took place at a time of considerable change in Irish archaeology, the strengths and weaknesses of research into the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition are of broader relevance.